The Forest
by Anna3422
Summary: "Eyes sparkling, she looked about the room. Past the lifeless figure and in every corner. She looked upwards, overpowered by a feeling of profound unworthiness. An apology trembled on her lips, but she could not articulate for what. Where was Papa? Where was God? The parlour offered no points of reference." Set the morning after Valjean's death. Oneshot.


Cosette woke up unsure of where she was. She raised her head blinking from the crook of Marius' arm and noted an odd dizziness. Her eyes felt sore and puffy as she opened them. A big room and nicely decorated. Marius sleeping at her side. Her memory cleared and a maze of grief threatened to engulf her. She focussed intently on the morning light, the quilt, the tulip in a vase on the dresser. Marius had begun to stir. Cosette gazed long at the fine outline of his face and rumpled hair and tenderness welled in her chest. Marius. That's right, look at Marius.

When Marius woke, she was smiling sweetly at him.

"Cosette . . . "

His eyes were red as well. The dark forest of Cosette's grief grew in the background, yet she fought it with all her strength and chattered gaily.

"Good morning. Oh Marius, I thought you wouldn't wake! It is so late. Let us go to breakfast. I think Toussaint must be downstairs. I heard her earlier. And I really do think we ought to go and see Grandf . . ."

His hand found hers. The other brushed lightly against her cheek. Cosette left off speaking and brushed a hand over suddenly tear-filled eyes. Marius reached for her and she nestled shyly back against his shoulder.

"Or stay," he murmured into the top of her hair.

"Or that."

They kissed lightly and Cosette giggled at the tickling of Marius' breath on her cheek. She let her eyes fall shut and reveled in the sheer niceness of it. Hand on his shoulder, fingers laced together, noses brushing. Marius' other hand caressed down her back and made her shiver.

"Marius?"

He stopped. "Should I not?"

"What are you doing?"

His hand drifted back to her cheek, which he kissed. "What married people do," he whispered and they both coloured pink. "It's alright. It can wait."

Cosette hid her blush in the quilt, while Marius pushed himself into a sitting position. He laid a hand atop her head, a hand she caught and used for leverage to pull herself up.

"So what now?"

"Breakfast. You are hungry, aren't you?" Marius led her to her feet. "I should go down, in any case." He grimaced. "Matters to settle."

She scanned his face and was unnerved by the seriousness there. "You won't be long?"

"I won't."

"Promise me."

"I promise." They embraced and murmered for some time still, while Marius nuzzled Cosette's face obligingly. She was reluctant to let go. It all felt so delicious.

A knock from the hall drew them apart and Marius ducked out to dress and find out the matter, leaving Cosette in the large room. The forest loomed at her the moment she was alone. She avoided it and busied herself with dressing. Nothing dark, she decided, washing her face in the basin. She would look civilized at breakfast. Metropolitan. She would affect it if she had too. And nothing dark or black. Mourning clothes could wait until afternoon. She shuddered. That could wait.

Marius re-entered the room before she was fully dressed and leapt back in haste, looking away.

"Forgive me!"

Their night spent together made the situation absurd, but Cosette leapt at the distraction.

"Of course I won't, you horrible man," she replied, fastening the last clasp on her bodice. Marius crept forward contritely, arms extended.

"Forgive me?" he repeated in coaxing tones.

Cosette pretended to frown and shook her head. She suppressed a smile and watched from the corner of her eye, as Marius dropped to his knees and gazed up at her in supplication.

"Forgive me."

Suddenly, she saw that his eyes were damp, and the woods of grief threatened her more powerfully than ever. She flung herself into his arms, repeating his name aloud, while Marius wept against her shoulder.

"Forgive me . . . "

"Whatever for?" But a dam had burst and her own tears flowed freely now with his.

"You know what for."

"No - No, I don't!" She protested, but Cosette was sobbing now, her breathing harsh and broken with hiccoughs. Marius was obliged to hold her up, while they cried together, rocking slowly, until Marius drooped from weakness in his recently recovered shoulder.

Cosette felt the twinge and drew back at once, solicitous of the wound, now pouring all of her attention into the shoulder, as if she had no other concerns.

"My own," Marius murmured, burying his face in her hair.

"You need strength," Cosette scolded seriously, but with a barely concealed plea in her voice. "You haven't eaten. Is Toussaint still here? It seems I must remember to feed you, if you forget so easily."

Carefully wiping her face and his, she stood to go. Marius regarded her morosely, but ate a full breakfast as instructed. Cosette did as well, for his sake. It was an hour later, when the undertaker arrived, that the woods appeared again at her back.

"Your instructions about the body?" An officious man in black closed the door to a back parlour, where the corpse of Jean Valjean lay under a sheet.

Cosette nodded demurely at the stranger, fetched tea, opened curtains, avoided eye contact. Marius caught her elbow after a word with the doctor and drew her into a corner.

"I'll look after it."

Cosette nodded in relief and beat back the tears that were threatening again to spike from her eyes. Marius laced his arm with hers.

"We'll give him a good burial," he promised. "A good funeral."

"N-no." She shook her head. "He wouldn't want that. Nothing like that."

Marius frowned. "But - "

"There was a place," Cosette continued. "Somewhere quiet. Oh, if only I could remember it! And an empty corner, and with a small stone and inscription, we could - but I don't know whether . . . " Her words tumbled over each other and, aware of the undertaker's presence, she fell silent. Drawing a steady breath, she raised her voice a little to address him.

"I should like it kept discreet," she explained, "if possible. He has too few living friends and knew so few people."

The man nodded. "The deceased's relationship to you?"

Cosette's mouth opened soundlessly and then closed. She cast a heartbreaking glance at Marius.

"Father," he supplied for her.

The doctor and undertaker convened.

"I suppose you would like a few moments alone, Madame."

Marius looked reluctant, but Cosette nodded with "Yes, thank you," and the men withdrew. Marius hovered on the thresshold, torn between going and following, but compelled by decency's sake to stay in the hall. Cosette forced a smile.

"Wait for me," she insisted, as he made to follow. "Please?" Her voice was mild, but her eyes contained hints of desperation, and Marius nodded. One last embrace. One glance.

Cosette paused at the door. Her whole body recoiled from entering the room. Her mind raced against her going in. Yet somehow her hand reached for the latch of its own accord. Against her will, she let herself into the parlour and closed the door.

There was the table, there the sheet and body, like an artifact on display. She approached it curiously, repelled and fascinated. She found the cold shrivelled corpse of a very old man. There was white hair and the clothing Valjean had died in, but no familiarity. No evidence of power could be detected in the broken limbs. No vitality or warmth in the gray figure. There was no one to inhabit this nameless body. Yet, on her third circling of the table, Cosette caught the glimpse of a smile or something serene in the dead face. She leaned over and kissed the cold forehead, tears falling silently onto his skin.

"Just in case, Papa," she assured it. "Just in case."

Eyes sparkling, she looked about the room. Past the lifeless figure and in every corner. She looked upwards, overpowered by a feeling of profound unworthiness. An apology trembled on her lips, but she could not articulate what for. Where was Papa? Where was God? The parlour offered no points of reference. Furnished to suit Mr. Gillenormand, it contained no religious momentos. A small shaft of light through the shutters showed dust motes in the air. Cosette extended a hand, reaching for . . . she didn't know. She saw nothing. No one. She looked and gazed, but found only the forest-green wallpaper and wooden mantelpiece. Yet she felt that something eluded her. If only she could sense it. If only she reached her hand a little further. But she found only air. She'd been too quick, reached too far.

Marius found her there, arm extended, with her back to Valjean's body, looking puzzled and forlorn. She sensed, rather than heard him, and broke from her thoughts.

"Let us leave," she said, as he stared sombrely at the corpse. "Marius? Please, let's not look anymore."

Marius looked mournful and she pushed gently for him to go.

"I would like to write something for his stone." She leaned her head against him. "Help me?"

"Of course."

They sat in one chair at Marius' writing desk. The undertaker measured for a coffin a floor below them, his small fee secure in a pocket, while Valjean's will remained stowed upstairs. Cosette held the pen to a heavily blotted page, while Marius fed her words and phrases, of which she wrote down only the nicest. The occasional shudder at her side let her know that he was weeping. But Cosette felt oddly calm. The forest was past and survived, and when she wept now, it was only because Marius did so.

"It was in Pere Lanchaise." She leaned against him, her thoughts becoming more collected. "In the North corner. He'll be safe there . . . I would plant marigolds. It's a shame it's so late in the summer. Fall crocuses may be better . . . He won't be lonely . . . "

A strange shiver passed over her and she set the pen down, speaking only into Marius' ear.

The following night, in a grassy corner, stood a freshly laid stone, bearing the words:

_"Il dort. Quoique le sort fut pour lui bien __é_trange,

_Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange._

_La chose simplement d'elle-meme arriva,_

_Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va."_

* * *

This fic tries to be both bookverse and musicalverse. The main thing is that it is set the morning after Valjean's death and tries to portray Cosette's psychology as I understand it in the novel. Let the forest stand for whatever you like: the Thenardiers, the unremembered past, human suffering etc. I hope it turned out as well as I like to think it did.

I make no apologies for stealing from the end of the novel, though I am a little sheepish at the extensive romance that made its way in here. (Ah well, it's Marius/Cosette. What can you do?)

Reviews, thoughts, discussion are all welcome as always.


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